


As We Lie In Fields Of Gold

by tielan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 03:24:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7417720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing about his choices or hers have ever been easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As We Lie In Fields Of Gold

**Author's Note:**

> The parallel story to [When The West Wind Moves](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7211183).

Steve is there when she rises from unconsciousness, when the world rushes into her senses and brings with it the nightmares she escaped.

She thrashes in the cradle, her eyes black and blank as her arms and legs flail in the gel, struggling against an enemy she no longer has to fight. And Steve reaches for her hand, not knowing if he should, only knowing that he must.

Her grip is ferocious and icy-cold, and he holds onto her for her sanity, calling her name, trying to reassure her, even as Helen recalibrates the opioids to take her back under.

* * *

Steve watches as Sif leans over the shadowy figure in the cradle as Helen explains, “We’ve reached the limits of human medicine.”

“And you believe Asgard can help.”

“We’re hoping you will.” Pepper is frank and brisk, but the hope Steve won’t let himself feel trembles in her voice. “Maria means a lot to us.”

“And to us.” Sif’s gaze flicks from Helen to Pepper to Steve. “Asgard is willing and able to repay the debt it owes. I come with permission to return with her.”

The words slip past his lips before he can censor them. “I’m coming, too.”

* * *

Thor grips his hand, falls in beside Steve as they wheel the cradle through palace corridors. “What happened?”

“Someone worked out who she was and what she did, and paid to get her out of the way.”

“You went for her.” Thor’s statement is fierce and approving.

“She ordered us not to.” The disregard she showed for her own safety, her own sanity still claws at him, tangled up in bitter regret and aching terror, bleeding out through a wound only he feels. At least he knew beforehand with Peggy, with Sharon – attraction, interest, care.

Maria took him by surprise.

* * *

Thor introduces him to the Asgardians who come to see Maria – Sif, Fandral, Hogun, Heimdall, Brunhhilde, Idunn. They greet him with respect, but their voices turn warm as they ask after Maria.

_She said once that Asgard owed her a favour._

Steve didn’t quite believe it, even when Sif turned up at Vision’s request. But here…

“What did she do?”

Brunhhilde’s surprise is plain on her face. “Loki watched for Thor and Sif while she crept in, and struck at him – he never thought a mere mortal might best him – but she did.” Warmth glows in her voice, unfettered admiration.

* * *

Steve’s there when she wakes without screaming. “ _Asgard?_ ”

He doesn’t have the words to answer her, so the heart-forge technician does.

Later, he stands looking out towards the rainbow bridge, his hands pressing into the balustrade until they’re nearly bloodless. She’s alive and awake. There’ll be some nightmares, but the Asgardians can mitigate those until she has the wherwithal to deal with them herself.

_Sometimes it’s tough gettting what you want._

Sam’s words ring in his ears, mere months after the fiasco with Bucky and Tony and the Accords.

Maria’s alive and sane, Steve tells himself; that’s what he wants.

* * *

“I have a question if you will answer it.” Fandral moves with the grace of a courtier, and the intent of a soldier, and Steve is suddenly reminded of Bucky.

He puts that ache away. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“It may not be yours to answer. I only wish to know if there’s someone who awaits Maria on Earth.”

Something stills inside him; it might be his heart. “I don’t know,” he admits after moments grind by. “If she has someone, she never spoke of him.”

“So she is free to be courted?”

“Yes.” The answer is dust in his mouth.

* * *

Thor settles down with his drink, having settled Steve with a flask. “I see that Fandral has set his gaze.”

“Do you trust him?”

“With my life, yes. With Maria’s heart?” The bearded smile is quiet and rueful. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s mortality that adds such allure to Midgardians – you live so briefly and yet burn so bright…”

There’s a regret in Thor’s voice that resonates with Steve. “Dr. Foster?”

“I could be with her so long as I was heir; but a king has a duty. Better to stay away, leave her free.”

Steve can’t answer that grief.

* * *

He doesn’t regret reaching for her while sitting out in the orchards, telling her about Pepper and the Avengers, about the sting of his best friend and girlfriend finding each other. And she doesn’t pull away, turning her hand in his, to grip his in silent sympathy.

“It felt like it should have hurt more,” he confesses, finally looking over at her. “I guess I should have taken that as a sign.”

Her smile turns careful as their eyes meet. “Maybe.” She takes her hand back, tucks it between her thighs. “You don’t have to feel by the book, Rogers.”

* * *

“What—? _Steve_!”

Her yelp sounds loud in his ears as his lunge takes them over the edge of the _umiak_. But she doesn’t struggle in his arms, although she gasps as they hit the lake below.

“You _idiot_ ,” she begins as Steve treads water for them both and watches her mouth bobbing so temptingly close to his—

“Ahoy in the water!”

Fandral hauls Maria out, slinging his cloak solicitously around her shoulders. And Steve climbs into the boat, sobered and sodden, and wishes he dared wrap his arms around her in more than just play on an Asgard afternoon.

* * *

If this is what Thor had in mind as ‘revels’, Steve thinks as he follows Maria and Fandral’s path through the crowds, then Stark’s party was pretty tame.

“She doesn’t notice his interest, you know.” Sif steps up beside him. “No more than she noticed mine.”

Steve glances at her, surprised by the frank speech. “Not many people look at her that way.”

“The more fool them.” Sif sips from the glass goblet she holds. “She speaks well of you, Captain.”

The laugh escapes him, unwontedly bitter. “I’m a useful tool for saving the world.”

Nothing more – never anything more.

* * *

Heimdall broaches the topic. “I imagine you’ll be returning to Midgard now that Maria is well.”

“I was going to request a transport the day after tomorrow. If you’re willing to send me back.”

The golden eyes fix on Steve, seeing too much. “She won’t be going with you?”

Steve thinks achingly of the sudden light of awareness in Maria’s eyes last night as she looked from the cup to Fandral, and then dropped her gaze when she met Steve’s. She owes him nothing; she never did.

“I don’t know,” he says in answer to Heimdall’s question. “I’ll ask.”

* * *

Steve finally tracks Maria down in the gardens, standing on the lawns beneath a sky awash with stars. Despair thrusts cold fingers through his gut as he asks if she’ll be going back to Earth. Why should she go back when nobody knows her name, and only a handful of people care if she lives or dies?

Duty. Duty and honour and responsibility for a planet that doesn’t appreciate who she is or what she does for them. It can’t be enough for her – it’s not enough for _him_ , and the world knows him – but he can’t have—

He _can’t_ —

* * *

He _can_.

“I’m not…girlfriend material.” Maria says it like it’s a flaw; maybe to someone else it might be. But Steve has never wanted convention – just opportunity. There won’t be promises – not if they can’t keep them, but even the opportunity is enough for Steve. He’ll work it out if she’s willing to compromise.

“Compromise?”

“Where necessary.”

“I…guess I can do that.”

“So can I.”

He reaches for her first, his fingers skating the cropped edges of her hair. Her shiver strokes a gentle   _frisson_ down his spine, before she steps into his arms.

They can do this. They will.

* * *

Warm sunlight caresses his spine – or maybe that’s the arm thrown over his shoulder, fingertips just resting between his shoulderblades.

“Am I too heavy?”

One eyelid lifts, then drifts back down again. “You’re fine.”

He can’t reach her mouth with his where he’s curled up against her, but he smiles and presses his mouth to her shoulder, lying in sunlit sheets. “So are you.”

It won’t be easy, of course; but nothing about his choices or hers have ever been easy.

That’s fine by Steve. He’s never been able to keep from a challenge, and Maria is worth every battle.


End file.
